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The Garden Theatre, in downtown Winter Garden, will debut "Christmas By Committee," a new Christmas musical by Central Florida playwright Rob Winn Anderson this Friday, Dec. 5. "Christmas by Committee was inspired by Winter Garden," says Anderson, who will also direct the show. "It's a new story but the heartbeat comes from the people here." In "Christmas by Committee: A Musical," the annual Citrus Village Christmas show is in a slump. But a newcomer in the town might have what it takes to get things back on track. First, though, she must convince the town's quirky Christmas committee — a surly band of misfits — that the...

Here are the the Central Florida arts organizations that received United Arts Operating Support Grants, which will be distributed in 2015. Technical assistance grants were awarded to help pay for a six-month series on fundraising developed by the...

Next to Social Security, there might be no more-popular federal program than Medicare. It provides health care to some 54 million Americans, including more than 3.5 million Floridians, who are 65 and over or have permanent disabilities.
But Medicare —...

Medicare's age of eligibility — 65 years — is outdated. It is not even rooted in the 1960s, when Medicare was created, but in the 1930s, when Social Security was enacted and initially fixed the normal retirement age at 65.
That's why a strong...

The Orange County Board of County Commissioners this week accepted the recommendations of the Arts & Cultural Affairs Advisory Board to provide $2,085,400 to a long list of arts organizations.
The money comes from the Tourist Development Tax. About 2...

The guest list for Sunday morning:
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, talks to ABC's "This Week" at 11 a.m. on WFTV-Channel 9. Another guest is Vice Adm. John Miller, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. The roundtable will be...

Over the past two weeks, more than 400,000 students in Central Florida started their 2014-15 school year. They are expected to make meaningful progress, with support of many diligent teachers and caring parents. To facilitate our educational progress, our...

Two dozen arts and cultural organizations received cultural tourism grants from Orange County this week. In total, $1,870,171 was given out by the Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs office.
The money is geared toward programs and projects that...

More than halfway to its fundraising goal of nearly $1.3 million, the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation plans to begin construction next month on a new history research and education center to keep the former citrus town's self-described "juicy...

If you notice construction dust at your favorite arts or other cultural institution in the coming months, the work will be in part thanks to this year's Orange County cultural-facilities grants.
In six years of the cultural-facilities program, the...

The sudden departure of South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint from the U.S. Senate has given new life to the idea that the tea party is in decline. DeMint took a job heading the conservative Heritage Foundation but Democrats and others were quick to...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein speaks Thursday on Capitol Hill about her bill to ban assault weapons. Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED: The weekend political discussion starts on HBO's “Real Time With Bill Maher.” Maher will i

After Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz attacked the 2015 spending agreement in the Senate last week from opposite ends of the political spectrum, Washington engaged in a little parlor game: Is Warren the Cruz of the left?
Though there are superficial...

WASHINGTON — A new show has opened on Capitol Hill, and, with any luck, it will have a long run.
It's called "The Taming of the Cruz."
Grenade-launching Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas took a familiar position of obstruction last week: He called on...

The nation's transportation system is broken, agreed a panel of transportation wonks gathered in downtown Baltimore on Thursday, but they could not agree on how to fix it.
"Transportation is broken. There's no way to fund it. America is one big...

The Heritage Foundation has weighed in with its contribution to the enduring conservative effort to paint America's poor as undeserving mooks.
The right-wing think tank's offer is a paper titled "The War on Poverty After 50 Years," by senior...

As a bipartisan agency, the Congressional Budget Office has to tread lightly when it tells any of its clients on Capitol Hill that they're full of it. So the agency's remarks Monday about the employment impact of the Affordable Care Act is remarkable...

"I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world...."
So says the wedge-shaped cuneiform script on the little Cyrus Cylinder, one of the...

Wait, I thought the Governor was supposed to be some super a-hole, like in the comic books, where he was a raping, murdering, torturing psychopath?
In Sunday night's episode of The Walking Dead, we finally meet the gov', and he comes across as a stand-up...